Sharon Stone Talks Playing Her Age in ‘Lovelace’, Putting a Character Together and How She’s Still Learning on the Job

Sharon Stone has done a brave thing for an actress—she’s made herself look older for a film role. In the new biopic, Lovelace, Stone portrays Linda Lovelace’s aged mother.

“We had pictures of Dorothy Boreman, so we lent ourselves to not trying to duplicate her but trying to capture the essence of her,” she said in an interview with IndieWire. “It didn’t take hours to do it, it was just creating a sketch of her.

“We stippled my face. Stipple is the kind of stuff that’s like a thin Elmer’s Glue. You pull the skin like this and then you put it and then you release the skin. It creates this sort of wrinkling sensation. And then they put this sort of water color on to make it. It’s just amazing. It was good, I mean it didn’t take long but it was great. And because I’m skinny it’s easier to use the body in this way to create fatigue.”

Stone explained that this process is similar to wearing a mask, creating an easier way into the character. “Part of your training as an actor is learning how to use your body. It’s part of dancing, it’s that forming the body into the character,” she said. “I played a character that had ballet training and part of that informed the way she was stiff and unapproachable. My character in Basic Instinct she was such a hustler, she had that hustling, hustling movement all the time. It just depends what you do. In The Specialist she was always like a panther, always moving around, always on the make. Once you get the way the character walks, I think that’s it.

“I mean, people put their characters together differently. And that really affects the way the clothes hang on the body. That was one of the great things about working with [Robert] DeNiro. He’s such a spectacular actor. He might put on 30 windbreakers, and he just works them on his body. I loved to watch him do that. You could see him looking for that little thing to ignite his character. It was very informative for me to watch him because he’s just the greatest at that. You can see it. And I think I learned so much just watching him. I was very blessed to have that experience. Learning with those people was sensational for me. And I feel that everything I’ve gotten to do since then reflects that deep opportunity of learning with them.”

Even though she’s been in the business for years, Stone continues to learn on set. “You get to a point where you don’t want to go to work if you’re not gonna learn,” she said. “I just worked with John Turturro, that guy’s a genius. It’s wonderful, I love it. That’s really the part I love about having this new—it’s really a new time in my career.”

She’s marking this new period with the role of Linda’s mother, which she researched extensively. “Jeff [Friedman] and Rob [Epstein] did a lot of research and gave me a lot of stuff to look at,” Stone said. “I mean they’re serious filmmakers, they’re the real McCoy. They are sensational filmmakers and they are sensational men. I hope they hire me a thousand times.”

Stone is now embracing her age and loving the opportunities that are presenting themselves.

“That’s the great thing about being an older lady. I’m coming in, I’m playing a mom, I’m at another phase of life,” she said. “I can play all kinds of different parts that I might not have been considered for before. I feel like another door has opened, that there’s another room of possibilities. It’s wonderful.”